In 1895 a round trip race from Paris to Bordeaux in France with distance of 1,178 km marked the first real automobile race in the world.
The winner in the Paris to Bordeaux race made an average speed of 24.15 kph–it was a Peugeot, which won over the Panhard-Levassor because of a technicality, not because of mechanical superiority. Later that Panhard-Levassor, came to Japan to become one of the first production cars in the country and also one of the first race cars.
The car was imported from France, and that it traveled from Tsukiji to Ueno in Tokyo.
Organized automobile racing began in the United States with an 87-km race from Chicago to Evanston, Illinois, and back on Thanksgiving Day in 1895. The world’s first official automobile race events began with competition among steam, electric, and internal combustion engines to test performance under demanding circumstances to determine which technology had superiority.
Racing has always been at the forefront of technological innovation ever since.
According to motorsports historian Fredrick Anderson, in Japan the first permanent track for racing was the brainchild of a Japanese auto fanatic that had been raised in Seattle but returned to Japan in the 1920’s.
Gunji Fujimoto went around raising the funds, awareness and people needed to establish a federation to run the speedway and maintain it. He built the Tamagawa Speedway just outside of Tokyo. It was opened on May 1936 and ran Japan’s hottest races until Suzuka Circuit opened twenty-six years later.
The Fuji Motorsports Museum connects this 130-year-long history of evolution and challenges with the future of automotive technology.
